Anyone familiar with or participating in flite-x carbon fiber cub?

Ran across this today and hoping someone here knows more or is involved and might share some details.

https://flite-x.com/

Interesting. Looks expen$ive!

Just ran into that on Instagram yesterday. Intriguing but looks far too complex to bring to production. I also have doubts on how much weight is saved over rag and tube just due to all the extra structure in that prototype they're building.

If I was to build a carbon fiber fuselage I would not follow the cub profile. A round tapered fuselage of CF would be stronger/faster. you could incorporate a pod. For the most part the fuselage is along for the ride. It is the prop/power, wings, tail, gear that make it work. I think building a CF cub fuselage is a fine project just because you can do it. The reason a fabric/metal cub is so popular is it can take a lot of abuse, be fixed with rope/hose clamps, small gas welding rig/tape.
DENNY

Interesting! Besides being expensive, aren't the advantages of carbon fiber weight, strength and corrosion resistance?
So, considering the light weight with the Lycoming on the nose, how much ballast are they going to need to control the nose heavy CG? It's marginal with a stock PA-18.

The advantage of carbon fiber isn't weight, it's strength relative to it's thickness and that can be either heavier or lighter than a comparable material for a given application. The goal of weight reduction can be accomplished by using carbon instead of aluminum or steel but only in a specific loading. Carbon panels for example are not normally much or any lighter than a thin aluminum panel but the carbon panel will be stronger across it's span. So carbon floorboards make sense because for a given thickness they have less flex than a comparably weighted aluminum panel which would have to be thin. If you're just using carbon as a cover up panel that has no structure? It's utility is dubious though considering many people use relatively thick aluminum for interior panels you can save weight by using a similar thickness carbon panel.

Here are some weights:
Carbon .062 sheet: 134 grams/square foot
Oratex fabric: 17g/square foot
3/4"x.035 Chromoly tubing: 116g/linear foot

These are some rough numbers and the carbon sheet is an already cured panel type sheet so if you're laying up a specific item like a fuselage tail you can kind of tailor that weight depending on structure but it's just a reference point. I can't see a carbon fuselage with adequate structure being appreciably lighter than a similar rag and tube structure if weight is taken into consideration and the steel tube structure is done without a ton of extra material. Strength would probably be superior on the carbon fuselage but to what point? The cub is already a pretty strong fuselage design to begin with so you're just adding unnecessary strength. Like Denny said, there are gains that could be made in aerodynamics and storage but they really need to start with a clean sheet design rather than just copying an old airplane in a different medium.

Another point of data: A DG400 motor glider is 675lbs empty. My J3 is 735lbs empty with a larger engine, larger fuel tanks, and two seats instead of one. The DG400 is carbon, the cub rag and tube.

Gabe. Have yu weighed that J3? or is that a paper weight?

Just askin’ cuz mine is 806 lbs. with a C85 and a 13 gallon Lh wing tank on 8x4’s.

Ps. There are lLOTSA reasons to like Aerocet’s composite floats. And not because they are any lighter than Aluminum ones.

Give the Karbon Kub a chance to impress. (its legal to type Carbon Cub if you dont mean Carbon Cub?!??)

Dave Calkins said:

Gabe. Have yu weighed that J3? or is that a paper weight?

Just askin’ cuz mine is 806 lbs. with a C85 and a 13 gallon Lh wing tank on 8x4’s.

Click to expand...

Oof, got me there. It's the paper weight after rebuild in 1993 so probably not super accurate.

I'm with crash Jr. I wouldnt be surprised if it comes out heavier depending on how they built the structure. anyone who has built a cub knows the bare fuselage is pretty darn light to start with, its all the other stuff that adds up weight. At 134G/ square foot for carbon fiber VS 17g/square foot for oratex they must have done some good engineering to make it lighter then a 4130 tube fuselage covered in oratex or even a more traditional covering system. the carbon still needs a UV blocking clear coat at the least or a paint job as well so that more OZ of weight to add. it should be very strong though! but unless your building it with a 780 CUI engine like mike patey it seems like overkill. but its different and cool so I like it! curious how it turns out in the end.